A People’s History of Leisure Studies: Leisure, the Tool of Racecraft

Abstract

The pernicious existence of race serves as the underlying force in modern societies. As such, the aim of this discussion is to postulate that leisure is a tool of racecraft: 1) the articulation of power, 2) the erection of places of demarcation, and 3) reification of the racial order. What is presented here is in one part a re-examination of seminal texts on Race in leisure studies and another part a case study of the 1919 Chicago race riots and the Biloxi wade-ins from 1959 to 1963. Both of these historical cases illustrate the simple act of recreational swimming in legally or socially segregated waters and pools outraged the White social order in the United States. This history is mirrored in the present day, not as another isolated horrible aside that arises from time-to-time in leisure but rather as the seemingly perpetual role of leisure to maintain the proper racial order, racecraft.